University of Arkansas philosophy major Edward Minar in his office. | Photo credit: J. Ross Packwood
For the past three decades, a veteran professor in the University of Arkansas philosophy department, has been influencing students and perfecting his teaching in ways that continue to impact everyone inside and outside of the classroom.
Professor Edward Minar is the kind of special teacher that people won’t always come across. His students feel connected and actively engaged to him. It is easy to see that he cares about what he teaches and about his students.
Minar studied at Harvard University and UCLA. At these universities, he built his expertise in Philosophy. He has many publications at the University of Arkansas philosophy website. He excels in specifically the ‘world’ of Wittgenstein (an Austro-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic) and the philosophy of mind.
Minar offers many courses at the University of Arkansas, such as Existentialism, Intro to Philosophy and Animal Minds. Animal minds is a unique class, and he uses his own dogs – Australian Shepards – as active demonstrations.
Minar was very inspired to pursue higher education and learning at a very young age. His environment during childhood impacted his future.
“My dad was a political science professor, so I was sort of surrounded by intellectual life,” he said.
He didn’t really know what he wanted to do job-wise once he was in college. However, high school is where he started his philosophical journey.
“I remember reading some Nietzsche and a famous collection called Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sarte,” Minar said.
He didn’t focus on a teaching career until his later years of college.
“What really forced me in philosophy was that it was the one place where I had to do the least narrowing down,” Minar said
He enjoyed the idea of how he could keep thinking about all kinds of different topics and different subjects. The subject can let him focus on the variety of perspectives. Minar thought it would be good practice to think about things he found interesting.
“I wanted to make my intellectual experience as broad as possible,” Minar said.
Philosophy is something you can apply to a lot of things in a matter of subjects. There are always questions to ask. This is why it appealed to Minar so much. When you have subjects like mathematics, which he was very good at, there are set answers you limit down into.
As a professor at the University of Arkansas for over 30 years, he has learned more about why he enjoys it so much.
“I think that teaching is potentially incredibly rewarding. I never experienced it as a grind because when I get in there and start talking, I get pretty into it,” he said.
His supervisor and colleague, Eric Funkhouser, said “he is a very conscientious teacher, he cares very much about his students, and he has a very pure interest in philosophy.”
Funkhouser is the chair of the philosophy department, a position Minar held for eight years.
“He was very easy to get along with in that capacity, and he was such a good advocate for each of us,” Funkhouser said.
Minar enjoys that he gets the opportunity to think out loud, and if that models something for the students, then it’s worth it. Minar says that it has made him a better person in the sense that he is a much better communicator. He has figured out how to talk to different kinds of people.
“I would really like to succeed in encouraging people to basically learn how to read and to enjoy that and to benefit from that,” Minar said.
For him, it is crucial that he can be an active model for his students. Minar hopes he can inspire younger people to pick up more books. He believes it is one of the most important things that anyone can do.